In a region where the ancient food staples of rice, flat breads and kababs still figure large around the family dinner table, a mushrooming McWesternised menu of greasy burgers, sandwiches and fried chicken is offering an exotic alternative to the Oriental ordinary.

And there appears to be no satisfying the bottomless Middle Eastern appetite for American fast food. Health issues aside, yes, Dubai wants fries with that.

Tasty, cheap and as the name suggests — fast — the fast service restaurant industry in Dubai is growing at double the global pace by some accounts, leading to a supersizing of new store plans in an estimated $1 billion (Dh3.67 billion) fast food market across the UAE.

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For generations, Americans embraced the traditional dayparts of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and quick serves fell into line with menu offerings and hours that respected the standards of the day.

Gradually, however, those historic daypart designations faded in the face of a changing employment landscape, a 24-hour culture, altered eating habits, and, most notably, increased snack cravings. Not surprisingly, quick-service restaurants followed suit by extending hours, altering menus, inventing new products, and creating expansive marketing campaigns in an attempt to lure diners during nontraditional dayparts.

“Consumers are deciding when they want to eat and what they want to eat just as restaurants try to accommodate as many [customers] as they can,” says Denny Lynch, Wendy’s senior vice president of communications.

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From the vegetable-garnished “Sedona” to the pineapple-topped “Choriperro”, South Florida is home to a creative lineup of hot dog options. And a handful of wiener-centric eateries are taking a sweet bite out of the $1.6 billion hot dog industry.

Their unique takes on the American staple — ranging from high-end chic to Chicago-style to South American flair — have allowed them to thrive despite focusing on a single, low-cost item.

“Even though we have three products — hot dogs, French fries and drinks — they all have to be fresh,” said Jill Arbetter, who owns Arbetter Hot Dogs in Southwest Miami-Dade County. “That keeps people coming back.”

Nationwide, hot dog season runs from Memorial Day to Labor Day, a 100-day stretch of steamy summer dog days when Americans consume 7 billion franks — 818 per second — according to the National Hot Dog & Sausage Council. Hot dog sales increased slightly to $1.6 billion last year, the council said.

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An organic burger restaurant in midtown Manhattan is using social networking for menu development, marketing, entertainment and even social change. Its delicious plans suggest ways that businesses of all kinds can transform themselves by “crowdsourcing” not only marketing, but product development as well.

When the 4food eatery opens its doors at the corner of 40th and Madison on July 6, it just might usher in a new era in the integration of social networking with the real world.

A 240-square-foot monitor in the restaurant will constantly stream Foursquare check-ins, tweets from Twitter, and restaurant information. In other words, the restaurant itself will be a social networking application.

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When it comes to great food, few things compare to the flavorful goodness of summertime meals cooked outdoors on the grill or around the campfire. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store has captured those delicious flavors in its Campfire Grill offerings for this summer. From May 31st through August 15th, stop by Cracker Barrel and enjoy your choice of three different Campfire Grill meals: Campfire Chicken, Spicy Grilled Catfish n’ Country Fried Shrimp, and Grilled Chicken Pineapple Salad!

“Our summer Campfire Grill selections are some of our most popular offerings of the year,” says Cracker Barrel Chef Bill Kintzler. “Our Campfire Chicken is more than a meal, it’s an experience.” The seasoned half chicken is sealed in foil along with corn on the cob, whole-cut carrots, fresh red skin potatoes, chopped onions, and tomato wedges and then slow-cooked until it’s tender and juicy. “When you open the foil packet, you’re treated to the steamy, delicious aromas of the roasted meat and vegetables, just like cooking on a campfire,” Kintzler adds. The Campfire Chicken meal comes with a choice of corn muffins or scratch-made buttermilk biscuits for just $7.99.

Fish and seafood lovers will enjoy Cracker Barrel’s new Spicy Grilled Catfish n’ Country Fried Shrimp meal. It’s a US farm-raised catfish fillet, dusted with a spicy seasoning and grilled, then topped with a generous helping of buttermilk fried shrimp and served over a bed of seasoned rice. It comes with a zesty tartar sauce, a choice of two country vegetables, and buttermilk biscuits or corn muffins for only $8.49.

Cracker Barrel’s grilled Chicken Pineapple Salad is perfect for people who prefer something on the lighter side but still want that great grilled flavor. It has marinated grilled chicken tenderloin, crunchy pecans and chopped pineapple, all on top of a fresh salad mix with tomato wedges and Monterey Jack cheese. It’s served with Cracker Barrel’s very own creamy pineapple ranch dressing on the side for $7.99.

Breakfast – and fresh berries – served all day!

For their guests who enjoy breakfast at any time of day, Cracker Barrel is offering three limited-time breakfasts for the summer season. Their new Wholesome Morning Sampler starts with a mix of low-fat vanilla yogurt, fresh blueberries and fresh sliced strawberries, topped with a honey oat granola mix of almonds and dried fruit. It also comes with a wild Maine blueberry muffin and two eggs, cooked to order, plus turkey sausage patties or hickory-smoked bacon for just $6.99.

For a new and different approach to a breakfast favorite, give Cracker Barrel’s Blueberry Streusel French Toast Breakfast a try. It comes with three slices of their blueberry streusel bread, dipped in eggs and then grilled to a golden brown. It’s topped with real butter and served with a warm bottle of delicious Dickinson’s^® Wild Maine Blueberry Syrup. Plus, it comes with two eggs, cooked to order, and hickory-smoked bacon or sausage patties for $7.29, or enjoy the French Toast alone for just $5.99.

Their Fresh Fruit n’ Yogurt Platter features low-fat vanilla yogurt topped with a honey oat granola mix of almonds and dried fruit. It’s served with a wild Maine blueberry muffin baked in their own kitchen, fresh blueberries, and whole strawberries for $6.49.

Campfire Grill meals will be available at most Cracker Barrel locations from May 31st through August 15th.

Jack Fenton fears he could lose his small sports grill any day now — not because of the economy, or bad service, or bad food — but because of an e-mail.

An inter-office e-mail was mistakenly sent out from Fort Leonard Wood, claiming that seven local businesses had failed their food inspections and would no longer be included on a list of restaurants approved for business from units on the Army post.

That e-mail went viral, and the businesses — none of which had significant health code violations on their last inspection — say the rumor has hit them hard.

“It’s pretty much killed us, businesswise,” said Fenton, owner of Crazy Jack’s Sports Bar & Grill.

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Grand Apizza in Clinton, Connecticut is a family business but the state of Connecticut is, in a sense, trying to break up the family.  Mike and Migdalia Nuzzo own the place and usually their 3 children, ages 13, 11, and 8 are here, too, helping out.  Not tonight or for the foreseeable future because of an anonymous complaint to the state labor department that brought in an inspector who told Mike…

Mike Nuzzo, Grand Apizza:  “That you had child labor here.”

Child Labor.  His children.

Mike Nuzzo, Grand Apizza:   “He told me that I couldn’t have my children here with my wife helping us out.”

Now understand.  Its not like the kids are pulling pizza’s out of 600-degree ovens.  The 13-year-old helps in the kitchen while the younger ones are out in front.

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The Obama administration took San Francisco’s side Friday in a legal dispute over the city’s groundbreaking health coverage law, urging the Supreme Court to reject an appeal by restaurant owners who objected to paying part of the cost.

In a long-awaited filing, government lawyers said passage of national health insurance legislation “has dramatically changed the landscape” and reduced the likelihood that cities and states would adopt laws like San Francisco’s. The case presents no pressing issues that require the court’s review, the lawyers said.

The justices had requested the administration’s position in October and delayed action in the case while awaiting a response. They could vote in the next month on whether to grant a hearing in the 2010-11 term, which starts in the fall.

The ordinance, passed in 2006, is intended to offer care to 73,000 uninsured adults not covered by the Medi-Cal program for the poor or Medicare for the elderly at a network of hospitals and clinics in San Francisco. City officials say more than 53,000 people are covered so far by the program known as Healthy San Francisco.

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The $48-a-plate shark fin has been a favorite dish to celebrate 80th birthdays and fete out of town VIPs since Vienna Hou’s Chinese restaurant opened 25 years ago.

But Kirin Restaurant customers won’t be dining in that style starting July 1, 2011, when Hawaii becomes the first state in the nation to ban the possession of shark fins. The state is attempting to help prevent the overfishing and extinction of sharks around the world.

“Something will be missing,” said Hou, who grew up watching her father sell shark fin as part of his seafood trading business in Hong Kong. “Decent Chinese restaurants — they all serve shark fin.”

Gov. Linda Lingle on Friday signed a bill prohibiting the possession, sale or distribution of shark fins. The bill passed the state House and Senate with broad support earlier this year.

The legislation generated some grumbling in Hawaii’s sizable Chinese community — more than 13 percent of the state population is Chinese or part Chinese. Many consider shark fin a delicacy and important part of Chinese culture.

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While most U.S. restaurants fight for every dollar, a new crop of indulgent burger chains have bucked the trend by recasting the American food standard with higher-quality ingredients and quirky toppings like fried eggs or pineapple.

The upstart burger joints run the gamut from Five Guys, a 600-unit chain known for its simple menu, fresh ingredients and generous portions, to Bobby’s Burger Palace, Chef Bobby Flay’s small but swanky chain.

They also include Denver-based Smashburger and The Counter from Los Angeles and range from retro-cool to modern.

“There’s an element of fun to burgers,” said Scott Hume, editor of the industry blog BurgerBusiness.com, who added that the enduring popularity of the “infinitely changeable” hamburger also springs from its broad appeal.

“Burgers, unlike any other niche in the restaurant business, span generations and span prices,” he said.

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Yum Brands has been getting a decidedly global flavor at its KFC, Taco Bell and Pizza Hut restaurants in recent years. And the next global market in its sights is the United Kingdom.

Yum! Brands will launch a Taco Bell chain in England next month according to reports, debuting at Lakeside Shopping Centre in Essex. The fare will be similar to what American diners are used to, with a menu that features cheap tacos and burritos and caters to value-conscious consumers.

This is just a small part of an ambitious growth strategy for Taco Bell and other YUM brands. The fast-food operator now has more than 3,500 locations in China, with ambitious plans to open about 500 new locations in the People’s Republic and about 900 internationally this year. This new growth plan has the potential to really super-size the profits for Yum in the months ahead.

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It’s easier to get a reservation at Manhattan’s most glitzy celebrity-packed establishments than at a tiny, century-old East Harlem restaurant.

But if you’re available July 27 and have a few thousand dollars to spend, you may have a shot at getting in.

The quaint restaurant, Rao’s, is auctioning off dinner for four on eBay, with proceeds going to a nonprofit Italian-American foundation for educational programs, such as grants to study Italian or to pursue research in Italian studies.

The minimum bid is $5,000. And the winners must dine on July 27; the restaurant is booked through 2010.

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Inside an American diner on North Main Street, 80-year-old waitress Willene Fetrow has been greeting her regular customers by name for nearly 30 years, remembering how they like their eggs and refilling their coffees.

While outside, time has raced by — on four lanes and now two — inside The Clock Restaurant, Fetrow has cultivated and nurtured relationships that over the years have grown closer than family.

“When they’re not here, we worry about them,” Fetrow said Friday of her customers, who carry such nicknames as Later Pancakes or other monikers based on their orders. “We keep up with their families. We grieve with them. We rejoice with them. I wouldn’t have made it to 80 without them.”

On Friday, more than 40 of Fetrow’s longtime customers turned the tables on the waitress, surprising her with birthday cake and presents as part of her 80th birthday party, filling half of the dining room with well wishers. More who have moved away sent cards, while others who were out of town for the holiday weekend sent their regrets.

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Chinese restaurants and takeaways in the UK have dirtier kitchens than eating places serving other styles of cooking, according to environmental health officers.

A national survey of hygiene ratings found that more than half of 491 Chinese outlets failed to meet all legal requirements aimed at preventing food poisoning among diners. Almost half of Indian restaurants and takeaways surveyed also scored poorly in the survey of different cuisines, which was carried out for The Independent.

Similarly low ratings were given to kebab shops, while failings were found at a quarter of fish and chip shops and one in five Italian establishments. By contrast, corporate burger bars run by McDonald’s and KFC chicken houses were found to be very clean.

Environmental health officers believe Chinese and Indian chefs struggle on hygiene because of “a combination of culture and language”, according to Paul Hiscoe, a director of Transparency Data, which carried out the survey. They did not always understand food laws and often had difficulty understanding instructions from council officers, he said.

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Is another fast food brand about to leave Israel? Yedioth Ahronoth’s economic supplement, “Mamon,” has learned that a conflict between the global Sbarro chain and its Israeli franchiser, Dan Werner, is threatening the American pizza and pasta chain’s activity in Israel.

The global Sbarro chain is threatening to sue the Israeli franchiser, claiming it failed to transfer royalty fees for the franchise. Sbarro Israel claims that the global chain failed to meet its commitment to support the local franchiser.

The BDI business information company recently issued a “red light” warning following a bounced check and delays in payments to suppliers of the Tukdan company, which owns the Sbarro franchise, and is controlled by businessman Dan Werner.

Some of Sbarro’s leading suppliers have told “Mamon” that they continue to supply to the company, “but under close surveillance of what is taking place.”

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In many ways, JonMichael (JM) Rasmus and Nichole Fromm are painfully typical Madisonians.

The couple moved here for graduate school 10 years ago and stayed. They are in their early 30s, both have work associated with government, and they go out to eat about twice a week.

Well, just about twice a week. The couple has eaten at some 550 different restaurants over the past six years, nearly all of them in alphabetical order.

Rasmus and Fromm are the masterminds behind Eating in Madison A to Z, a dining blog that inspires lively debate over the quality of corn cakes at Pedro’s and the wisdom of serving sushi at a western-style buffet.

“We have never, ever, ever said we’re food critics,” Fromm said. “We are just people writing a diary about where we go out to eat. And it’s a fluke that we’re absolutely average Madisonians.”

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The roach coach is toast.

The much-maligned lunch truck, a streetwise descendant of the push carts and food wagons parked outside factories, mills and warehouses in the 1940s and 1950s, is undergoing a renaissance.

Colorfully painted gourmet or specialty food trucks first found a foothold in Los Angeles, then spread to New York City, San Francisco, Austin, Texas, and elsewhere. Trucks with such monikers as Frites ’N’ Meats, the Calexico Cart, Cupcakes a GoGo, the Dim Sum Truck, ChiLantro and Big Gay Ice Cream started attracting a generally youngish clientele starving for alternatives to chain and other mainstream fare.

Now the fanciful lunch trucks — all with Twitter feeds or Facebook pages to alert customers to their ever-changing locations — are going nationwide, with trucks opening in Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, San Antonio, Seattle, Washington, D.C., and Cincinnati, which got its first gourmet lunch truck, Cafe de Wheels, earlier this month.

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McDonald’s will continue its long time association with Europe’s renowned national team competition and will be part of UEFA EURO 2012 and UEFA EURO 2016. McDonald’s and UEFA have worked together since 1992 and todays announcement said that the sponsorship as the official restaurant and UEFA EUROTOP partner will cover all competitions under the EUROTOP programme until 2017. McDonald’s joins adidas, Castrol, Coca-Cola, Hyundai-Kia and Carlsberg agreements as an official UEFA sponsor.

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The name Zoe means “life” in Greek, which is what Anesti Gjikuria has put back into the old Kitchen restaurant on Wicomico Street in downtown Ocean City.

“We wanted to bring life back into The Kitchen,” said Gjikuria, who moved to the area from Greece in 1998 at the age of 15, which was when he also first started working in the restaurant business.

Gjikuria bought the restaurant in November and spent months reviving and sprucing it up. He cleaned, took down a partition, built a new counter top, painted and changed the ceiling and floor tiles.

“It was closed last year and people are glad to see it reopened,” Gjikuria said. “All of the regular customers that used to come into the old restaurant see the changes and love them. They say they are so glad to see it open again because they used to come here for years.”

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Imagine a restaurant as a human being: Its brain is the executive chef; its heart the cuisine style and menu; its arms, hands and legs the hard-working kitchen and front-house staffs.

Its soul? The stock.

Chicken stock, beef stock, vegetable stock and other stocks that the chef deigns to have made are the essence of all else. Without well-made stocks, the specialties of the house, the regular entrees, soups and side dishes would lack for a theme at best and be flavorless at worst.

A restaurant without good stocks is like a person without a soul.

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New Orleans chefs pride themselves on their seafood delicacies. But many Louisiana eateries in the Crescent City, and elsewhere in the state, fear that oil spilling into the Gulf will drive customers away.

Restaurant owners have sued oil giant BP, and they’re spreading the word that their seafood is safe. It’s still on the menus.

At Dickie Brennan’s Bourbon House, on the same-named street, 45 sacks of oysters were recently delivered and shucked and served. Leo Price taps his knife onto the shell and listens for a particular sound.

“When I tap on it, a hollow sound means no water. A silent sound means the oyster’s good,” he says.

Those good oysters, piled on a half shell and stacked on the shiny oyster bar, are the first things customers see when they walk into the place.

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Pizza Inn, Inc. hosted over 200 franchisees and supplier partners from four different countries last week at their annual convention held at the Gaylord Texan. It was an appropriate place for their Blazing New Trails theme!

“We look forward to this event because it brings our family of franchisees together to share their experiences, talk with their suppliers, learn new ways to build their business and it’s an opportunity for us to recognize franchisees and restaurants who have shown growth throughout the year,” said Charlie Morrison, CEO of Pizza Inn, Inc. “We have franchisees who have been with us for over 40 years and we consider them our family. When you add our supplier partners, who have provided us with quality service for so many years, it becomes an extraordinary meeting of the minds that makes us grow as a company.”

After all the meetings, discussion panels, and workshops, it was time to tip their hats to the supplier partners for excellent service and the franchisees, who lead the chain. Some of the awards included Restaurant of the Year, which applauds the crew, management team and franchisee for operational excellence. This award went to Pizza Inn of Conway, SC owned & operated by Scottish Food Systems franchisee.  ”We are thrilled and honored to receive this award. Our team works above and beyond to ensure our customers have a positive experience,” said Tom Broome, President of Scottish Food Systems.

The 2009 Supplier Partner of the Year award is given to the Pizza Inn supplier who provided outstanding support to the system. Pizza Inn was proud to award this to Roma Foods. “We value our relationship with Pizza Inn and strive to provide them with everything necessary to prepare a quality product. This award is greatly appreciated and we look forward to continuing this kind of service,” said Fred Dallas, President of Roma Foods Springfield, MO.

Lastly, the esteemed Legacy Award is only given in recognition and honor of a franchisee’s long standing contribution and commitment over many years to the advancement of Pizza Inn and its franchise family. This award was presented to Khushru Mistry of United Food Company. “We have put trust and confidence in the Pizza Inn brand and since the beginning of this relationship, there has been no looking back,” said Khushru Mistry, CEO of United Food Company in the Middle East. ”I feel very proud because I have spent most of my career with Pizza Inn, I have grown with Pizza Inn and it feels good.”

For more than 50 years, Pizza Inn has provided consumers with a variety of specialty and traditional handcrafted pizzas, pastas, salads and desserts in a dine-in buffet format with delivery and carryout. The company popularized a unique thin crackery crust that is made from scratch everyday and has since become the signature product offering. Over the years the menu has expanded, but the company’s commitment to the highest quality ingredients, the friendliest service and affordable pricing have remained unchanged.

Headquartered in The Colony, TX, Pizza Inn, Inc., is an international pizza chain featuring traditional and specialty pizzas, as well as freshly made pastas, sandwiches, and desserts. Founded in 1958, publicly traded Pizza Inn franchises approximately 310 restaurants and directly owns and operates three restaurants.

With hot summer nights just around the corner, OpenTable, Inc., a leading provider of free online reservations for diners and guest management systems for restaurants, today announced the national winners of its second annual Diners’ Choice awards for restaurants its diners deemed the best Late Night Finds. The list of winning restaurants is derived from more than five million reviews submitted by OpenTable diners for more than 11,000 restaurants in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

“Whether you’re hungry for terrific food or a happening scene, these restaurants are serving up both delicious dishes and fun well into the night,” said Caroline Potter, Chief Dining Officer, OpenTable. “Even in major cities, not every restaurant is open as late as you might like it to be. This list makes it easy to find delicious food at almost any hour.”

Based on feedback collected from OpenTable diners between April 2009 and April 2010, the following 50 restaurants, listed in alphabetical order, received the highest scores from OpenTable diners, indicating that they were considered among the top choices for Late Night Find restaurants.

The 2010 Winners of OpenTable’s Best for Late Night Find

  –  Alhambra Palace Restaurant — Chicago, IL
  –  B.B. King’s Blues Club, Orlando — Orlando, FL
  –  Beehive — Boston, MA
  –  Birraporetti’s — Houston, TX
  –  Biscuits & Blues — San Francisco, CA
  –  Bistro Francais — Washington, DC
  –  Bluefin — Memphis, TN
  –  BoHo — Hollywood, CA
  –  Bradstreet Craftshouse Restaurants — Minneapolis, MN
  –  Cabana — Nashville, TN
  –  Chino Latino — Minneapolis, MN
  –  CODA — San Francisco, CA
  –  Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar, Orlando — Orlando, FL
  –  Departure Restaurant and Lounge — Portland, OR
  –  DISH, Dallas — Dallas, TX
  –  Dizzy’s Club Coca Cola — New York, NY
  –  Eclipse Restaurant — St. Louis, MO
  –  Enso Asian Bistro & Sushi Bar — Charlotte, NC
  –  Eulogy Belgian Tavern — Philadelphia, PA
  –  Firefly Kitchen and Bar, Downtown — Las Vegas, NV
  –  Firefly on Paradise — Las Vegas, NV
  –  Geisha House — Hollywood, CA
  –  Globe — San Francisco, CA
  –  Gyu-Kaku, Beverly Hills — Beverly Hills, CA
  –  Gyu-Kaku, Huntington Beach — Huntington Beach, CA
  –  Gyu-Kaku, Sherman Oaks — Sherman Oaks, CA
  –  Hip Kitty Jazz & Fondue — Claremont, CA
  –  Ivan Kane’s Cafe Was — Hollywood, CA
  –  Kingfisher Bar & Grill — Tucson, AZ
  –  Loca Luna — Atlanta, GA
  –  Macao Trading Company — New York, NY
  –  MUA — Oakland, CA
  –  Negril Village — New York, NY
  –  Oola — San Francisco, CA
  –  Pete’s Cafe & Bar — Los Angeles, CA
  –  Red Room — Raleigh, NC
  –  Rumba — Chicago, IL
  –  Sambuca Restaurant , Nashville — Nashville, TN
  –  Shout — Atlanta, GA
  –  Solas — Raleigh, NC
  –  Spazio — Sherman Oaks, CA
  –  Strip — Atlanta, GA
  –  Suzy Wong’s House of Yum — Nashville, TN
  –  Swanky Bubbles, Old City — Philadelphia, PA
  –  Tao Restaurant and Nightclub — Las Vegas, NV
  –  The Black Pearl — Ann Arbor, MI
  –  The Drawing Room @ Le Passage — Chicago, IL
  –  The Jazz Kitchen — Indianapolis, IN
  –  Wokcano, Long Beach — Long Beach, CA
  –  Woodward — Boston, MA

OpenTable is a leading provider of free, real-time online restaurant reservations for diners and reservation and guest management solutions for restaurants. The OpenTable network delivers the convenience of online restaurant reservations to diners and the operational benefits of a computerized reservation book to restaurants. OpenTable has more than 13,000 restaurant customers, and since its inception in 1998, has seated more than 150 million diners around the world. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and the OpenTable service is available throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Japan, Mexico, and parts of Europe.

Danny Meyer, responsible for some of the most successful restaurants in New York City over the past 20 years, and his company, Union Square Hospitality Group, will open two restaurants and an upscale bar at Saratoga Race Course this summer.

Under a partnership announced Wednesday with the New York Racing Association, Meyer’s company will create racetrack versions of Blue Smoke, Meyer’s Manhattan barbecue restaurant, and Shake Shack. The latter is a casual burger-hotdog-milkshake chain with locations in New York including at the Mets’ ballpark, Citi Field in Queens, and elsewhere.

The two Saratoga restaurants will be located where the Paddock Tent previously was, near the clubhouse entrance adjacent to the paddock. The hospitality group’s catering-and-events wing, called Union Square Events, will also design, build and operate The Paddock Bar, which will sere specialty cocktails, beer and wine.

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It’s one of summer’s signature bites — the hot dog, that is.

And whether you call it a frankfurter, wiener, weenie or frank, you’re likely to enjoy one — or a dozen – as the season sizzles.

According to National Hot Dog and Sausage Council estimates, Americans consume 20 billion hot dogs a year, which works out to about 70 hot dogs per person.

We eat them at ball games, the beach and backyard barbecues. And sometimes our frank hankering beckons when we’re on the road.

We’ve scouted them out and found a couple of stands that dish up tasty dogs with a little atmosphere and attitude on the side for fun.

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Corner Bakery Café has signed two new franchise partners that will develop a total of 27 units over the next eight years.

Corner Bakery Cafe will work with CB Rest Holdings LLC to open 15 cafes in South Florida in the next eight years and Preferred Hospitality Inc. to open 12 locations in Southern California within the next seven years.

“Interest in our franchise development program has picked up quite a bit,” says Bob Hartmann, Corner Bakery Café’s vice president of franchise development. “It was fairly strong throughout 2009, despite the economy.”

Last year, Corner Bakery opened eight franchise restaurants including the first in Utah. Hartmann tells GlobeSt. he expects about the same number of franchise cafés to open this year.

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The Washington Restaurant Association today announced their strong support of liquor privatization initiative 1100. The initiative would create a more competitive free-market system for the sale and distribution of spirits, beer and wine which will provide more choices for consumers and businesses. If passed, the initiative would allow the private sector, including retailers and existing beer and wine distributors, the opportunity to sell spirits.

“Washington restaurants employ more than 185,000 people in the state. A competitive market for spirits, beer and wine will greatly assist our ability to retain and grow jobs in restaurants for Washington,” said Bruce Beckett, WRA director of government affairs. “Our members are entrepreneurs and support a system that is more competitive and promotes choices.”

Washington collects more dollars per gallon of alcohol sold than any other state in the nation. I-1100 would allow consumers, including restaurants, to choose their suppliers with prices set in the competitive marketplace. Because Washington is a liquor control state restaurants are entirely dependent on the state for a supply of spirits to serve their customers.

According to Beckett there are other initiatives that have been filed to privatize liquor sales but I-1100 is the only one that allows a competitive market to fully function. The other initiatives maintain decades old policies that prohibit retail to retail sales and do not allow quantity discount pricing.

“We believe that I-1100 will bring about a more competitive market for spirits, beer and wine in Washington and that it is appropriate for the voters to consider this option in the upcoming General Election,” said Beckett.

The Washington Restaurant Association, in its 81st year, is the leading business association for the restaurant industry — the largest private employer in the state with an average workforce of nearly 200,000 in 2009. In Washington, the more than 12,500 restaurants annually generate $12.2 billion to the state economy and contribute $635 million in state taxes. Washington restaurants are vital to our economy, community and careers.

Alamance County restaurant owners still are unsure just how much the oil spill in the Gulf Coast will impact the seafood options on their menus in the future.

But for right now, many are seeking new sources for seafood, especially shrimp and oysters.

For restaurants, such as Mayflower Seafood on Huffman Mill Road that specialize in all those tasty morsels from the sea, it’s a huge dilemma. The restaurant was getting most of its shrimp, oysters and scallops from the Gulf region, said Cathy Oates, the restaurant’s manager.

It isn’t anymore.

“We are dealing with it,” Oates said. “We are trying not to raise our prices.”

But it’s a challenge. Mayflower Seafood still offers its $3.99 shrimp plate special on Tuesday, even though the shrimp is coming from a new — and more expensive — source.

“Our strategy and plan in order to be able to work with loyal customers is to go with the flow, maintain the tide and just absorb it ourselves and not pass it onto customers for as long as possible,” Oates said.

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With evidence mounting of  flagrant abuses of PCI-DSS security standards, two attorneys are on the verge of announcing the official filing of a national lawsuit against one of the hospitality industry’s biggest point-of-sale (POS) technology providers and one of its system resellers.  The targets of the upcoming legal action will be Restaurant Data Concepts, Inc. of Warwick, Rhode Island – creators of the POSitouch™ system – and CC Productions of Hoboken, New Jersey, the reseller. POSitouch technology is installed in more than 20,000 restaurants nationwide.

According to the attorneys preparing the lawsuit, Charles Hoff (the Law Offices of Charles Y. Hoff, PC, Atlanta) and Shiel Gallagher (Gallagher & Gupta, PC, Chicago), the companies allegedly sold and installed POS systems that contributed to identity thefts at multiple restaurant locations.  Gallagher and Hoff are still being contacted by new plaintiffs who wish to join the lawsuit, and there is hope that RDC and CC Productions will decide to resolve the situation before it goes to court.

“Frankly, I have seen all kinds of abuses of PCI standards in the industry, but this is as flagrant as it gets,” said Hoff.  “POS vendors have a responsibility to do their part to ensure that their customers use only PCI-certified system applications. These systems should never store sensitive customer credit card information that could be stolen by hackers.” In addition to his hospitality law practice, Hoff lectures on PCI-DSS issues to the restaurant industry and is called in by restaurant associations to assist their members when security breaches occur.  

Hoff and Gallagher have issued notification letters about the developing lawsuit to restaurant associations in all 50 states so that they may alert members.

PCI-DSS is a comprehensive set of technological requirements and consumer protections created primarily by the major credit card companies as part of a PCI Security Council to safeguard merchants from internal security breaches and identity theft. POS system vendors must follow these standards, and any businesses accepting credit cards for payments (such as restaurants) are contractually obligated to use equipment and software from PCI-DSS compliant vendors.  The penalties for retailers that have their systems breached can be massive, even if the problems are the fault of the hardware and software vendors.

At the core of the allegations in the developing lawsuit:

1) POSitouch’s POS system failure: The facts emanating from a forensic audit reveal that POSitouch sold a system that was non-compliant with PCI-DSS.

2) CC Productions’ mismanagement: This POSitouch reseller engaged in flagrant violations of PCI standards that gave rise to the security breaches.  When companies such as CC Productions engage in the support and management of a merchants’ POS application system they need to ensure that they are not engaging in suspect actions that open up the ports so that hackers may penetrate the entire system through malware.     
 
“POSitouch and CC Productions have not been responsive to our efforts to resolve this situation on behalf of their customers,” said Gallagher. “We know there are many more restaurants across the country that have used these companies and could potentially be facing similar frustrations. Our goal is to give all of these customers a voice and resolve the issues that are putting diners at risk.”

While the exact amount of the identify theft losses to banks, the financial losses to the restaurants, fines, investigatory costs, fines imposed by the credit card companies and other costs attributed to fixing the computer systems’ security breaches are still being tallied, the lawsuit is seeking compensation to repay the penalties levied by the credit card companies and the massive costs to track down and repair the POS system problems. According to the attorneys, damages “could run well into seven figures.”

“There are many restaurant owners who are not aware that there may be a potential crisis lurking in their systems and that their businesses and customers may be at risk due to these companies,” said Gallagher.

Restaurant owners using POSitouch and/or CC Productions who are concerned about risk exposure can contact Gallagher and Gupta – (312) 841-1141, positouchclaim@gallagherpc.com.